Securing Chips During Manufacturing

By Ed Sperling - 07 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

David Lam, chairman of Multibeam, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about how next-gen lithography tools can be used to prevent cyber attacks and counterfeiting of hardware. SE: How did you get into the anti-counterfeiting business? Lam: About three years ago we were working with some customers that were troubled by the counterfeiting problem. We became aware of that sense o... » read more

Abundant Change Ahead

By Brian Bailey - 06 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 1

There is nobody who would question the amazing ride that semiconductors have been on for the past 50 years. It has been described as the longest running exponential that humankind has ever been a part of—and it is not over yet. Still, the future is very likely to be substantially different from the past. It is almost natural for us to see a trend and assume it will continue. There have bee... » read more

EDA, IP Sales Up

By Ed Sperling - 30 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

EDA and IP revenue increased 4.5% in Q1, a significant increase given the semiconductor industry was flat last year and that EDA sales dropped 1.9% in Q4 of 2015. Total sales were $1.962 billion, up from $1.877 in Q1 of 2015. The big surprise, though, was Japan, which grew 12%. Japan's semiconductor business has been in a deep slump for several years. "It's been a long time since we've se... » read more

Can Verification Meet In The Middle?

By Brian Bailey - 30 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Since the dawn of time for the EDA industry, the classic V diagram has defined the primary design flow. On the left hand side of the V, the design is progressively refined and partitioned into smaller pieces. At the bottom of the V, verification takes over and as you travel up the right-hand side of the V, verification and integration happens until the entire design has been assembled and valid... » read more

Will Open-Source Work For Chips?

By Brian Bailey - 30 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 2

Open source is getting a second look by the semiconductor industry, driven by the high cost of design at complex nodes along with fragmentation in end markets, which increasingly means that one size or approach no longer fits all. The open source movement, as we know it today, started in the 1980s with the launch of the GNU project, which was about the time the electronic design automation (... » read more

Executive Insight: Grant Pierce

By Ed Sperling - 29 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Grant Pierce, president and CEO of Sonics, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss new ways to increase energy efficiency in SoCs. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Looking out at the semiconductor industry there are a lot of changes underway right now. What are the biggest impacts from your perspective? Pierce: The amount of data that is being captured or sen... » read more

Data Analytics To Drive IC Shift

By Paula Doe - 28 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

The adoption of predictive analytics has the potential to drive the next round of IC industry innovation and growth. Much of the necessary data handling technology is now available from other sectors. However, to fully capitalize on the possibilities, the IC manufacturing world faces particular challenges in figuring out how to get a high yield of actionable information from its streams of vari... » read more

The Road To 5nm

By Ed Sperling - 23 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 1

There is strong likelihood that enough companies will move to 7nm to warrant the investment. How many will move forward to 5nm is far less certain. Part of the reason for this uncertainty is big-company consolidation. There are simply fewer customers left who can afford to build chips at the most advanced nodes. Intel bought Altera. Avago bought Broadcom. NXP bought Freescale. GlobalFoundrie... » read more

Why IP Subsystems And Why Now?

By Rich Wawrzyniak - 23 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

At the recently concluded DAC 2016 conference in Austin, Texas, I had the opportunity to participate in a tutorial on IP Subsystems on Wednesday the 8th. Also participating were Marco Brambilla, Director of Engineering at Synapse Design and Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. The reality today is that device complexity in many applications has risen to levels that require increasing amounts of disc... » read more

High Performance And Scalable Sensor Connectivity With MIPI I3C

By Synopsys - 15 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

The MIPI Alliance is working on a new standard called I3C (or SenseWire) that incorporates and unifies key attributes of I2C and Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). MIPI I3C enhances the capabilities and performance of each approach with a comprehensive, low pin count and scalable interface as well as architecture. It supports sensor interface architectures that mobile, mobile-influenced, and em... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

Hot Chips 24: Large language models ratchet up pressure for sustainable computing and heterogeneous integration; data management becomes key differentiator.